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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3502198" data-attributes="member: 4937">I reject the notion that player expectations of power level have anything to do with balance.  A player's expectations of power level are an important part of the social contract, but if that player appeals to the notion of balance to justify his expectations of power level then I think that he's conflating two very different things (and the implicit argument he's making is one I find very ugly).  So before we get any further in elaborate essays, I think we better stop for a minute and ask what we mean by the word 'balance'.  In a nutshell, balance is a synonym for 'fair'.  A game is 'balanced' if it is fair, that is if it does not favor any of the participants over any other.  When we speak of a board game as being 'balanced', we mean that it does not particularly favor who goes first, or if it does, the favoritism is so slight that quality of play can easily overcome the imbalance.  In particular, a games balance is usually spoken highly of, if there are within the game many local optimal strategies so that no matter what situation that the player (randomly or semi-randomly) finds himself in, there is almost always some line of play that allows him to be competitive.In the context of an RPG, balance still refers to 'fairness', but in more particular ways that depend on the particular aspects which are unique to RPGs.  In particular, an RPG is said to exhibit balance if the challenges that the PC's are expected to overcome can be overcome with the resources provided to the players.  In other words, in the context of an RPG, balance means that the players are capable of achieving local victories.  I say 'local' for lack of a better word, because one of the unique features of RPGs is that they tend not to have any end or any defined way to win the game.  An RPG is praised as well balanced if there are many different choices available during character creation (or play) which provide (at least some of) the resources necessary to face the challenges expected to be overcome, while on the other hand not reducing the challenge to the point it is non-challenging.What should be striking about this definition is that what is challenging and what is fair is entirely arbitrary.  I've tossed around terms like 'challenges that the PCs are expected to face', and those terms mean exactly what a particular group defines them to mean.  In the context of D&D, if one group expects at 8th level challenge encounters to be CR 8, and another CR 10, and another CR 6, then so long as that expectation is met, that is exactly balanced in all three cases.  And, so long as this situations meets everyone's expectation, none is any better or worse than the other.  There is nothing inherently correct about where you set your expectation of what balance means, so long as you have it. I would hope that this is in some way obvious.  For example, Call of Cthullu sets very different expectations about the degree of challenge and the likihood of success compared to your average D&D campaign, but that in no way makes one game inferior to the other.  If one DM runs D&D like Call of Cthullu, so long as the players have agreed to play at his table with some understanding that the game will be difficult in particular ways and so long as the DM gives the players reasonable oppurtunities to succeed within this framework, and allows them to do so even when it is unexpected, then its a 'balanced' game.  On the other hand, if some DM wants to run a hack and slash game, so long as he provides actually challenges to the players (at thier play level!), then that is also a 'balanced' game.S'mon points out that referees determine in game reality, and goes on to suggest that all editions of D&D prior to 3rd edition have this feature.  He is correct.He is also not being nearly as strong in his argument as he could be.  Every RPG that has a referee has the feature that the in game reality is determined by the referee.  It is always possible for a DM to follow the rules and present the players with an unsolvable problem.  The DM determines by fiat ahead of play what the in game reality will be.  Even if he never uses referee fiat at any time during play, everything that is in the game is in the game by fiat.  To put it another way, the rules never construct the dungeon, or if they do, then you don't need a referee.Because of this, you can never talk about an RPG being balanced between all of its participants.  The DM is always favored.  He alone can construct reality, and regardless of whether or not he follows the letter of the rules, this allows him to be arbitrarily fair or unfair.  Because of this, it doesn't really matter whether the DM follows the rules.  What matters is that the player's trust in the DM is warranted.One could just as easily ask if there is any basis in believing in a non-fiat paradigm of RPG balance.  How can you possibly claim simulateously that "visions of balance differ widely", and yet that a single codified rigid set of rules exists that does not rely on fiat and yet which meets all of these visions and expectations?</blockquote>

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